The Hunter
by Cynthia Arrow
Summary: Kate could handle the insanity, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Instead, she counted the stars.' An interpretation and slight rewrite of Jack and Kate's conversation during episode 2.1.


Disclaimer: I didn't birth these characters. I only nurture them and hope they grow.

Rating: K+

Note: I'm re-writing a conversation from episode 2.1, although I don't believe I'm changing the thrust of Kate's behavior or Jack's. This started out as a story about a talk between Kate and Sawyer last season, but I was never happy with it. It appears that I've found something to make it into now.

The Hunter

Kate was taking a long walk on the shore, escaping the claustrophobic feeling of panicked people. What passed for civilization on the island had a way of running toward insanity when something bad happened. She could handle the insanity, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. Instead, she counted the stars.

In her life on the run, she'd often been in cities so large that the lights and the smog kept her from seeing the constellations. But when she could, she looked for Orion, the hunter. Those three stars in a row that made up his belt were a nice reference point for her, no matter the country or even the hemisphere. They moved across the sky with the seasons, but they stayed together, and she could almost always find them, except during those months where he dipped below the horizon so early it was too bright to see him hunting Taurus in the sky before the world revolved him out of sight.

She often wondered if it was bad that she liked to run. It was a necessity, but there was also something about moving that suited her. It kept her life from getting boring. The only problem with never settling was that she needed something to anchor to. For a long time, it had been Tom and then memories of Tom, but he was not a reference point she should have let herself depend on. He was like a star that never moved, bright and alone and clear. What she needed was something much more messy, a constellation that turned somersaults in the sky, one that hunted something or, like Taurus, was hunted.

She knew that she needed to find Jack, so she reluctantly circled back toward the land of glowing torches and frantic whispers. She wanted to be annoyed with them, but she knew that wasn't fair. For all her comfort with anarchy, she was aware that very few people knew how to handle it, and her fellow islanders were no exception. Then there was Jack, sitting off by himself, so much like them but also outside them. He was not happy on the island, but he was too pragmatic to spend his time pretending or wishing he wasn't. She was always astounded at how he could appear magically calm, as he had when telling them they would be okay. Or perhaps he was.

When she finally reached him, she asked him if he believed what he said, although she didn't listen to his answer, mainly because she didn't feel she should quite believe it either way. Jack had either convinced himself of something that wasn't true, or he was lying and she didn't want to know. Still, she thanked him for saying it because it might have been the only thing keeping everyone together. Everyone, that is, except Locke.

She wanted to tell him that she couldn't stay, but somehow she felt rooted there with him, soaking up the feeling of safety he took great pains to radiate, broadcasting a little of her own calm and faith to buoy him. Stuck but far from really content, she just sat there quietly and waited to hear what thoughts were rolling around his head, or at least the ones he'd be willing to admit to.

Finally, he said, "Why do you think he wanted to die?"

"What?"

"Sawyer," he said, turning his head toward her. "Why did he go out there, knowing he would die, and probably not a nice death? Is he punishing himself for something? I know you know something about him, something bad, I think."

"Not entirely. And it's not about punishment, Jack. There are a lot of reasons people run."

"Running I can understand, but to go on a mission that's much more likely than not to end horribly…well, it doesn't make sense."

"Not to you. But, you know, you wanting to amputate Boone's leg instead of letting him go didn't make sense to a lot of people either."

Jack just stared ahead at the fire a few yards away, but he looked momentarily deflated, at least to her trained eye.

She said, "That was out of line."

"No. No, it wasn't. I guess we just have different things that we have to do, different ways to play hero. I have to physically reach out and save people, protect people; you…and Sawyer…have to do every damn fool thing you can think of to impress God into smiling down on us for just a little while longer."

"I'm not so noble."

"No? You're not noble but you're not out to punish yourself?" He looked at her as if she might offer an alternate explanation.

"I don't think you'd get it."

"Try me."

"I have to save myself. And I have to do it actively."

"I think you have to do something actively, and if it saves you and anyone else, it's a nice side effect."

She smiled. "Maybe you're right. Inconsistent, but right."

"Not inconsistent, just confused. But you are appeasing some god, or maybe showing off, whether you realize it or not. Or maybe thumbing your nose."

"Well, let's hope Sawyer keeps thumbing his nose at Poseidon."

He gave her the strangest look and laughed, but it was a hollow laugh, the only kind anyone could muster in the thick atmosphere of dread in cavetown. Once again, Kate was fixed there, looking over Jack's profile and wondering. Landing on the island, she had chosen someone to keep in her line of vision, in the cardinal place in her mind, someone shining and absolutely fixed. But Jack was no more a good anchor than Tom had been, not for her anyway. Really, an anchor wasn't what she needed, not even one she was lightly tethered to. If there were to be any vital but thin threads that linked her to another person, it had to be someone mobile.

When she told him she was going to help Locke, he only seemed stunned for a moment, then he put up an argument that sounded more like something he thought he should say than something he agreed with or believed he could change. His eyes communicated many things to her before she couldn't look at him any longer, squeezing his shoulder and slipping out into the woods to do only God knew what. As she walked, she couldn't see the stars. She wondered, as she did constantly, if Sawyer could see Orion from where he was.

-end-


End file.
